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This chapter explores two of the shorter and less successful series, based on novels, that were produced in the Thatcher era – The Day of the Triffids (1981) and The Tripods (1984–85) – and assesses how each of them is responding to the Thatcherite landscape, both artistically and in terms of the new economic restrictions: the tighter budgets with which to make television. The chapter shows that The Day of the Triffids provides a kind of template for characteristics that would become front and centre in the Thatcher era – self-interest, Machiavellian behaviour, cynicism – but also remains quite faithful to the source material. The Tripods presents more of an engagement with the neoliberal tropes of the Thatcher era, updating and inventing many of its characters and scenarios to reflect this new environment.
This chapter analyses some of the most salient examples of science fiction television produced before the Thatcher era, arguing that generic science fiction television in the 1970s, the decade before Thatcher’s election, aligns itself in broad terms with modernist ideas about technological and teleological progress – the advancement of humanity; the faith in, and simultaneous dread of, technology – as well as simplified moral positions assuming a certainty and objectivity. But this chapter also shows that the moral dilemmas more commonly faced by characters in the 1980s are beginning to surface here. On ITV the spectre of ‘Americanisation’ was beginning to loom, while on the BBC science fiction was treated with a more aloof attitude. In both cases, however, there is a stable hierarchy, with the authority of the middle-class white man at the apex. There is an ethos of collectivism found in most of the series here: people work in teams, and rarely is the individual prized over the group. This reflects the social-democratic nature of the post-war consensus era. The authority of the white male leader, seen as benign, is largely taken as axiomatic. This was to radically alter in the Thatcher era, buckling under the pressure of what Stuart Hall called the ‘authoritarian populism’ that these Thatcherite series negotiate.
Draws together all the strands of the book’s analysis, and compares the series to show similarities, examining how science fiction from the Thatcher era can be explored as commentary on its political context.
The introduction lays out the basic contention of the book: that science fiction television changed its style and focus in the Thatcher-era series, swapping political contentment for themes of revolution, anarchy and terrorism – supplanting the utopian dream for a dystopian nightmare. It started to integrate the logic of the marketplace, and presented a wavering engagement with the themes of Thatcherism – the focus on the individual, the accumulation of wealth in private hands, the loss of traditional authority and the various engagements with authoritarianism. This necessitates a discussion about Thatcherism and its main themes, and a presentation of the basic theoretical framework.
In this chapter, the only two British science fiction television series written directly for television in the 1980s are examined. The first, Knights of God (1987), is a deeply conservative King Arthur fantasy about a dystopian England taken over by a fascist organisation. Although it seems to be about resistance and freedom fighting, it soon becomes apparent that it is thinly disguised propaganda for the Church and other traditional British institutions. It uses the neoliberal tropes of ‘the hero’s journey’ and other conservative touchstones to tell its story. Star Cops (1987) is a wholly different enterprise. It tells the story of Nathan Spring, a detective who is sent to command the Star Cops – the police force on the moon. Drenched in neoliberal concepts, it presents a future where almost everything is controlled by private corporations, and almost everyone is governed by the logic of the marketplace.
This chapter follows the adventures of the Doctor in the late Thatcher era, 1983–89. Doctor Who (1963–89) had been in production for many years before Thatcher’s rise to power, but during Thatcher’s time in office the series changes considerably. The character of the Doctor becomes more Machiavellian, the series darker and more brutal. Doctor Who of this era attacks Thatcherism head-on (and intentionally on the part of the writers), but also brings about themes that appear pro-Thatcher in their implications. Doctor Who is the most inconsistent of the three series studied, in part because there were many hands involved in producing the series. In the era of Sylvester McCoy – the seventh actor to play the Doctor (1987–89) – Andrew Cartmel took over as script editor. Cartmel assembled a team of writers who, along with McCoy himself, were stridently anti-Thatcher, and this sentiment was often reflected in the themes of the series. Yet Cartmel, in an effort to reintroduce mystery into the series, also reimagined the character of the Doctor as dark and manipulative. This was known in fandom as the ‘Cartmel Masterplan’ or ‘Andrew Cartmel’s Dark Doctor’. The ironic consequence of this characterisation is that it turns the Doctor himself into a more Thatcherite figure, as he acts as the ultimate authority in the universe, deciding when it is appropriate to kill, to manipulate others, and even to commit genocide.
This chapter discusses the ITV television series Sapphire & Steel (1979–82) and its relationship to the early years of the Thatcher government. This series was produced by ITV and concerns two mysterious extraterrestrial travellers called Sapphire and Steel, operatives of an unseen higher power, whose origins are an almost complete mystery. Their job is to repair ruptures in time, where malevolent forces have entered the universe. Futility is also a strong theme in this series, which ends on a similar note to Blake’s 7: the protagonists are confined to an eternal prison. The characters in Sapphire & Steel are more ‘conservative’ than the characters in Blake’s 7, yet I argue the series is just as strongly anti-Thatcher in its claims about the illusion of individualism and independence. In the final episode, Sapphire and Steel, independent operators, are betrayed by their superiors and confined to an eternal prison in space. The chapter posits that an analogue can be found in Thatcher’s many claims about independence, and her simultaneous attempts to silence those with contrary political opinions.
British science fiction television series of the late 1970s and 1980s present dystopian worlds and fatalistic themes. They appear at a tumultuous time in British politics – the seismic shift from the consensus era to the election of Margaret Thatcher’s government in 1979, and the ushering in of neoliberal economics. This book begins by discussing the themes of 1970s British science fiction series – collectivism, teleology, technology, scientific progress – and goes on to show that they have been replaced in the Thatcher era by much darker tropes – individualism, Machiavellian behaviour, selfishness, personal wealth accumulation. The optimism of the 1970s series has been superseded by inertia, loss and futility. Characters have moved from hopeful, traditional and rational to duplicitous, ironic and cynical. The book undertakes an analysis of these series to determine if these changes can be read as a response to Britain’s changing political landscape.
This chapter takes a close look at Blake’s 7 (1978–81), appearing right at the beginning of the Thatcher era. The chapter situates the series alongside the beginnings of Thatcher’s time in office and showing, as the ensuing two series do, a wavering engagement with the themes that would begin to constitute Thatcherism, presenting an uneasy and ambiguous connection with the tropes of the era, and a detectable shift in the style of television compared to the examples from the previous chapter (even if their roots can be discerned in these antecedents). Blake’s 7 is a BBC dystopian series about a group of outlaws in the future who steal a space ship and use it to try to bring down the Federation – the corrupt ruling power of the galaxy. It presents a group of increasingly individualistic crew members with little affection or respect for each other, whose motives are very often selfish. It also presents a world where there is little reward for altruism, and futility is the dominant theme. In the end all the crew members are murdered by the Federation, their efforts apparently amounting to nothing. This chapter will discuss the ways in which Blake’s 7 departs from traditional consensus-era science fiction television, including the Machiavellian motives of most of the central characters (on both sides of the political spectrum), the elevation of the individual above the collective, and its portrayal of the apparent futility of political struggle.
This chapter focuses on Varda’s key fiction films up to Vagabond (1984): La Pointe Courte (1955), Cléo from 5 to 7 (1961), Le Bonheur (1964) and One Sings, the Other Doesn’t (1978). Where Varda’s career begins with an advocacy of couples in love – in La Pointe Courte and Cléo from 5 to 7 – the conception of the couple takes an extraordinary turn in Le Bonheur: a husband betrays his wife, only to then ask her to consent to his affair. Varda’s film is not necessarily critical of the husband’s actions, but nor does it endorse those actions. Rather, a guiding ethos of Varda’s works is that of refraining from judgement. The chapter expands on distinctions, introduced in earlier chapters of the book, between what Stanley Cavell calls acknowledgment and what Leo Bersani describes as connectedness. The chapter argues that Varda’s earlier films frame acknowledgment in a positive way, but, as her career progresses, the films move more and more towards an outlook that endorses connectedness.